Should I make my child retake the SAT I?

Parents Social Lounge
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<p>IIRC, your bright, disorganized kid started out at a higher tier school, left, took time off, worked and then returned to a lower tier school to finish (I might not be remembering that completely correctly, but it was something like that, I think - you will surely correct me calmom). My point in bringing this up is that it is a perfect example of what we were talking about at the outset of this thread-- that HS kids heading to college more often than not do not have the wisdom, the experience, etc to make the best choices for themselves, and really do benefit from the guidance or feedback from parents to help them make the best choices (such as discussing the reasons to retake the SAT to get that math score up a bit). </p>

<p>Now maybe calmom thinks that the non-traditional route to the ultimate college diploma was what was best for her s and that he had to learn that by hitting lifes speedbumps, taking the detours and the extra time that he did. Maybe that worked for her, but I dont think that would work or be the choice for most parents.</p>

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I don’t know my math guy never managed to get an 800 on the SAT 1 though that was his strength. Every time he took it he made a couple of silly mistakes - either misreading questions or forgetting steps on easy questions. He still had an excellent score, but he thought SAT II Math was a lot easier. He took the SAT I twice on the theory that with superscoring it doesn’t hurt and it’s only a morning lost. The writing score didn’t budge (though he did better on the essay), but the math score went up 20 points. I don’t think it helped him, but it didn’t hurt either. </p>

<p>My (private) high school back in the day said you had to take the SAT twice no matter what. A friend of mine got 750,750 the first time and complained bitterly as she was happy with those scores. School said we don’t care everyone takes them twice. She got 790,710 the second time - which gave us all a laugh, but with superscoring she came out ahead.</p>

<p>I always liked what one ad com said about how important SAT scores are “Less important than you fear, but more important than we like to admit.”</p>

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<p>Wow! You must have been very tempted to remind them that you were the customer …</p>

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<p>Post #81 makes no sense at all to me. Are you now suggesting that I should have packed my bags and moved into my kid’s dorm room, so that I could have nightly nagged him about keeping up with the assignments? Parental wisdom and all of that. </p>

<p>My kid was happy with his SAT score, he did not retake the exam, he got accepted at all his top choices, and went off to a college that offered small classes, close advising, and generous financial aid. Seemed like a good choice at the time - he turned down a spot in Berkeley feeling that he would do better at a smaller college with small classes. </p>

<p>I am a loss to see how my son’s difficulties tracking and prioritizing his work in college is in any way connected to parental desires to see their kid produce a higher SAT score. If anything, in hindsight, it suggests that parents should pay a lot more attention to their kid’s demonstrated habits and abilities, and a lot less attention to test scores and other artificial measures of “potential”.</p>

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<p>Re: homework: How is this even debatable? Do your work. Life is not about innate abilities. Ultimately you have to hone those through practice. If you achieve high grades without practice, you will eventually hit your ceiling of natural talent and then what will you do? I was the child who was always said to be working below potential because I forgot homework. My mother told me that I had to make lists, she would help me, get my nose out of that book and get organized.</p>

<p>Eventually, I did. Is there ever any question that actually doing work should factor into someone’s grade? It is part of what demonstrates that you know the material.</p>

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<p>Why not? The most interesting and successful people I know did it on their own.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine an 18-year-old who couldn’t make those basic calculations on her own. She might benefit from parental input but not making the decisions? Give me a break.</p>

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<p>This is total nonsense, at least for right-brained visual-spatial learners, who learn nothing through drill, practice and repetition. Just give them the facts and the big picture framework and they will permanently store what they learn in an accessible matrix of interconnected ideas. Such students will do their homework out of diligence, but realize it has little value (to them) so may be somewhat careless about the assignment once they have mentally finished with it. </p>

<p>Done at a very high level, this learning process often looks like magic to an outsider: I watched my son teach himself Physics C Mechanics in 2 days, using his previous knowledge of Physics B and his self-taught calculus as hooks. He did not review and repeat, he didn’t do any actual problems during his initial review and he didn’t write down a single formula, ever – he just observed how the new formula was both similar and different from ones presented earlier. On the 3rd day, after he had finished all of the material, he took a couple of old AP free-response exams, checked his answers and went back briefly to clarify any issues he had missed. That was it for that subject, and he got a 5 on the test a few weeks later.</p>

<p>Of course, visual-spatials learn from doing a few very complex homework problems to see if they truly understood all aspects of the presented material. The waste of time is when a simple formula is presented and then one is made to do 20 problems which are exactly the same.</p>

<p>Here’s a useful link about visual-spatial learners:
[Visual-Spatial</a> Learners](<a href=“http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm]Visual-Spatial”>http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual_Spatial_Learner/vsl.htm)</p>

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<p>Not worth retaking unless she really focuses on the Math - that would mean a one-on-one tutor or very disciplined examination of her 660: should she have left a couple blank, can she eliminate more incorrect answers before guessing, can she learn when to plug and chuck, can she learn how to answer one or two of the questions that she missed. It is not worth just resting and then taking it again.</p>

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<p>Hard to understand the narrow thinking of some posters. Identifying the right college is about multiple factors-- test scores, grades being only a small part of it. Of COURSE evaluating the students history of things like learning, behavior, organizational or attentional issues should be considered in helping our children make decisions that will increase their likelihood of success.</p>

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Why would this matter, calmom? Most schools superscore these days.</p>

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<p>MmeZeeZee,</p>

<p>The OP (who seems to be sadly long gone as this thread has taken lots of twists and turns) is talking about her daughter, who is midway through her junior year of HS. This dau is probably 16, maybe 17, not 18. Even so, some, but not all 18 years olds have the judgement, wisdom, foresight, planning etc abilities of even slightly older adults. No need to take this thread more off topic by talking about brain/ executive function/frontal lobe development of young adults, but suffice it to say, just because someone hits the chronological age of 18 in their sr yr of HS or freshman yr of college does not mean they are able to exercise all the best judgement. It is probably for this very reason that the OP asked her question in the first place.</p>

<p>IIRC, Mmezeezee, you are a non-traditional student back in school. So understand why the detours that some students take may be more understandible to you.</p>

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<p>But jym - we’re giving the OP the benefit of our years of parenting experience! Maybe he or she is just busy committing all this to memory. :D</p>

<p>Going even farther off-topic - Interesting post #86, LorenIpsum! It illustrates that square pegs don’t need to learn things in the same way we round ones do. But I’ve got to agree with post #85 about doing one’s homework not being debatable. Even for kids who don’t benefit academically from doing it, they’re ultimately better off just sucking it up and handing it in. Adult life means recognizing that there are unpleasant tasks that must be done - and that certain areas of life won’t accommodate our individual needs and preferences. Public schools teach this concept early and often (one of its usually unrecognized benefits ;)).</p>

<p>We’re lucky in the US because there are options for kids whose learning styles vary considerably from the usual - homeschooling, private schools, online learning, and maybe, if you’re very fortunate, some flexibility in individual public school teachers.</p>

<p>We all want public schools to prepare children for productive adult lives. Given the zillion and one expectations, regulations, budgetary constraints, and criticisms public teachers face, we can’t blame them for focusing their efforts on techniques that will benefit the most students in the most efficient way possible. And most students will learn from problem sets or vocab drills or other assignments that some may see as busy work.</p>

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<p>LOL, frazzled! Those memorization drills from HS days being put to good use, eh??</p>

<p>and I agree with this

Listen to mom-- she knows better :)</p>

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<p>When D1 was in third grade, she was required to do mad minute in math - how many math problems could they do in one minute, which meant having to memorize the multiplication table and able to add/subtract very quickly. By the time D2 got to third grade, they were into newer math - it’s more important to understand the concept instead of memorization. Guess what - D2 was still counting with her fingers and toes by the time she got to fifth grade, she was so unsure about basic math that she couldn’t grasp new concepts. We ended up sending her Kumon for a year, and everyday she was drilled on simple math (1+1, 1+2…). Her math teacher didn’t know what we did, but he said she was more relaxed in math at end of the year and was one of his top students. He attributed it to maturity.</p>

<p>D1 is a math/econ major in college. She is still required to do problem sets and gets graded on those problem sets.</p>

<p>There are many things that are hard to do over. In my experience, young adults can often be shortsighted and are more into instant gratification. It is not inappropriate for parents to step in, even to push them, to do something they wouldn’t do if given a choice. My kids have thanked me many times for decisions I have made for them.</p>

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Bingo! Exactly, oldfort!!</p>

<p>My older s (mech engineer- very good intuitively at math) decided at a young age that he didnt need to memorize his multiplication tables. He said he could just recalculate them in his head, or reason out the math problem (I forget exactly how he worded it). Well, it took only one thing to change his mind… when younger bro began to be able to rattle off math multiplication facts faster than he could! I will never forget-- we were in the car and somehow a “lets see who can answer this first” game ensued. Younger s (4 yrs younger) answered the basic math multiplication facts and “beat” older bro at this, hands down. Older bro suddenly decided he needed to memorize his multiplication tables :)</p>

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<p>Yep ^^^ - there are some positive aspects to sibling rivalry, I guess! I have often thought that d2’s striving for success is rooted in not wanting her older sister to get all the oxygen in the room.</p>

<p>There are many different ways to communicate with a stressed-out hs junior. If someone has advocated strong-arming a kid into retaking, I’ve missed it. But I think some degree of parental encouragement (up to and maybe even including a loud exchange of ideas? ;)) is in order when the parent sees some benefits the student doesn’t yet. We don’t know much about the OP’s family dynamics - the thread title asks about “making” the kid retake. I don’t know what he or she means by that. And I don’t know how I’d have “made” any of my kids do it. Kind of like toilet training - the kid has the ammunition. If the parent sets up a situation where the kid refuses to cooperate, it’s, well, a mess.</p>

<p>I guess I’m saying that we want to work toward creating an alliance with our children, so that they’re more open to hearing the parent’s POV. And the parent has the right to express that POV. I am also firmly on the side of those who want to see kids making a strong effort if the parent is making a profound financial sacrifice for their educations.</p>

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<p>"This is total nonsense, at least for right-brained visual-spatial learners, who learn nothing through drill, practice and repetition. "</p>

<p>School is not only about learning facts. It is also about learning to DO drills, practices, and repetition. I commend you all for trying to get your children jobs for which they will have secretaries from day one. I certainly want that for my own children. However, the reality is, some of them will need to do a lot of rote work in everyday work, even in the most interesting professions. It is rare that even the most glamorous-sounding job requires no rote work, no silly tasks, etc. which are in place generally in order to keep records.</p>

<p>I can appreciate that the child might not learn much else from that, but learning to pay attention to rote work is a skill in itself (incidentally, a skill which is quite useful for meditation as well).</p>

<p>“Suffice it to say, just because someone hits the chronological age of 18 in their sr yr of HS or freshman yr of college does not mean they are able to exercise all the best judgement. It is probably for this very reason that the OP asked her question in the first place.”</p>

<p>I fully agree and that is why I said that as a parent paying for school, she has every right to demand that her daughter do everything possible to increase her chances for scholarships. I also believe that parents should advise their children throughout life.</p>

<p>“Force” is just a different question, though. Yes, I force my small children to do things required for health and safety. I provide incentives and guidance, obviously, beyond that. But at sixteen, should her daughter have the right to refuse, even in the face of advice and conditions being placed on further funding? I suppose she does. I believe education is a privilege, not a right or an obligation.</p>

<p>I was a very traditional student up until I graduated college and was highly motivated, as it sounds like the OP’s daughter is. I just think “force” is strong. Reminding her daughter that taking it easy is costing her parents a lot of money is not unfair, though.</p>

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<p>I hope the OP will repost with an update. Sometimes other posters get stuck on one word and that word seems to take flight. In this case that word seems to be “force”. The OP only used that word once, in the original question, and quickly, by post 17 or so, said she’d encourage DD to retake the SAT but wouldnt push. In some situations, pushing a bit might be in order (as several posters here have commented). </p>

<p>I hope, as frazzled suggested, that the OP and her DD have a good conversation about the pros and cons of retaking the SAT, discuss the colleges that are or might make it onto her application list, and include a realistic discussion of the cost, scholarship opportunities, etc. All too often we read on cc about schools that a student really wants to attend but the $$ discussion never really happened, or there was a miscommunication between the parent and child about the cost of attendance, especially if there are thoughts of professional or grad school down the road. Good luck, OP. I hope you and your daughter come up with a good plan that works for both of you!</p>

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<p>Thanks to everyone. I’m really grateful for the detailed and thoughtful reactions to my question. #75 Hopkins Mom, I appreciate hearing your personal experience with your daughter.</p>

<p>As I mentioned, I’ve decided to encourage DD to retake in the fall (I know that many advise against fall tests, but we are just too busy now). This is provided that she spends some time in the summer reviewing for the Math section. If she’s not willing, there is no point spending the time and money.</p>

<p>Re merit aid: of course it’s nice but in our case not a necessity. I already assumed she would not be in the running for merit scholarships at the most competitive places on her list. </p>

<p>Temperamentally DD does not respond well to pushing. She is not a tippy-top student but, to my great relief, she is an effective, self-regulating, responsible one (her GPA and all her accomplishments, such as they are, are entirely her own). She doesn’t even let us read her papers! I do not want to trigger a destructive response by picking my battles poorly, which is what motivated me to seek advice on this forum.</p>

<p>I know kids with similar records and temperament who got into top 25 schools. I do not know what their families are paying. I can say that my DD will not be devastated not to get into JHU or similar if it is not meant to be. She wants a place where there is a spirit of learning and the students care about more than just grades. Davidson was a favorite but she also loved St. Olaf, a less competitive admit. So I think she will be fine, whatever happens.</p>

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<p>I certainly don’t disagree that it’s important for a student to do assigned homework, even if it doesn’t help him learn – if nothing else, it’s being respectful to the teacher and to the institution that one attends. There is, however, a qualitative difference between a student who REFUSES to do the homework and one who’s simply a bit spacy about always turning it in on time. Not accepting slightly late homework at all bothers me, especially in those cases where the student has already demonstrated the knowledge that such assignments are supposed to have taught.</p>

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<p>I agree wholeheartedly. Working with one’s child to talk through an educational plan helps them consider issues that may not be on their immediate horizon or not yet within their realm of experience. I’m aggressive about promoting my views, but I also encourage my son to argue his case logically when he disagrees with me: from respectful disagreement often emerges a more optimal solution. </p>

<p>Whether one can require one’s child to retake a test they don’t want to take is a tough question. While the “do it because I say so” argument falls flat, it’s also true that your daughter has certain expectations from you – paying for the college of her choice – that really should be EARNED rather than just taken. Plenty of kids attend community college or take out college loans which they pay for out of future earnings. If your daughter does not wish to do so, then she really does need to consider doing other quid pro quos as her part of the bargain.</p>

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<p>post #89 (re doing worse on retake):

post #98

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<p>Sometimes its not worth the emotional toll takes on a relationship for a parent to make a big deal out of something that, at best, is speculative in terms of likely results.</p>

<p>Based on raw statistics, the odds are 2 to 1 against this student doing better on the exam, and given that it’s math, the only path to an improved score is a lot of study and practice.</p>

<p>Thee idea that the kid is somehow going to qualify for a materially higher degree of merit money with a few more points on the SAT at a highly competitive college is equally speculative (and, I think, unrealistic). I already pointed out that Davidson seems too like qualities like leadership and contributing to the community when it gives at scholarships (as well as athletics) – so the kid would probably do better to increase chances at merit money by ratcheting up the community service hours, especially as that also increases chances at getting outside scholarships from community organizations. But no one is telling the OP that she should make her daughter volunteer more.</p>